Adrian Magson - Death on the Pont Noir

December 1963 — Picardie, France

The gleaming black Citroen DS with the curtained rear windows ghosted along the deserted country road at a steady 70 kph, its hydropneumatic suspension making light of the undulating, pitted surface. Inside the car, its two occupants were as shielded from the cold tarmac underneath as they were from the frost-glazed mud of the fields on either side, warmed by the controlled whisper of heated air wafting gently around them.

‘Belt up tight,’ said the driver. His name was Calloway. ‘This could hurt, otherwise.’ He checked his double shoulder harness with its quick-release button and, for luck, tapped the padding on the roll cage, an ugly non-factory addition to the otherwise plush, stylish interior.

‘Just get on with it,’ muttered Tasker, his passenger. ‘You talk too bloody much.’ But he checked his harness and settled lower in his seat, bracing himself with both hands.

Calloway flicked a glance across the field to his right, to where the stubby shape of a truck was moving away from a strand of pine trees. It accelerated quickly, bouncing along a rough track on heavy-duty tyres, bits of mud and vegetation flicking up in its wake. Olive green in colour, it had the low, front-heavy bulk of a bulldog, made uglier by a large black oblong strapped across the grill.

And it was aiming towards the road in front of them on an intercept path.

‘Two hundred yards,’ Calloway murmured, watching the truck’s progress. He was calculating its trajectory, his foot steady on the accelerator. A quick glance at the road, keeping to the centre line, then back to the truck, the eye movement and speed of the two vehicles bringing them closer together in sharp bursts like the stuttering frames of an old film reel.

‘Hundred yards.’

‘He’s gonna miss.’

‘No, he’s not. Seventy.’ Eyes to the road and back. Surface clear, no other traffic, just as they’d been assured. Something on the grass verge but no time to look now. Concentrate.

‘He’s bloody shifting a bit, isn’t he?’

‘Fifty yards.’ The truck was suddenly bigger, solid. Brutish.

‘Go.’

‘Thirty.’

‘Go, for God’s sake!’ Tasker pounded the dashboard in panic as the Renault tore out of the end of the track and loomed all over them, its grill grotesquely dwarfed by a railway sleeper held in place by steel hawsers.

Calloway calmly flicked the wheel and stamped on the accelerator. It was too late for a complete miss, but limiting the damage was as instinctive to him as breathing. The Citroen’s rear end drifted sideways on the slippery surface, an elegant shuffle of its aerodynamic lines like a lady performing a two-step. The movement absorbed some of the impact, but the wooden sleeper still slammed into the car just aft of the passenger seat, punching the panel hard against the reinforcing struts welded into the interior. The car spun violently on its axis, jerking both men hard against their harnesses, and the scream of tortured metal and rubber echoed across the cold acres on either side of the road.

‘What’s he trying to do — bloody kill us?’ Tasker turned to glare at the truck driver, who was grinning down at them as he slammed the truck into reverse and pulled back several yards along the road.

‘Isn’t that the general idea?’ Calloway coolly spun the wheel and stamped on the accelerator, taking the car back up the road, its rear end sinking under the extra power being transmitted to the wheels.

‘Idea! I’ll bloody give him an idea,’ Tasker raged. ‘Let me out! Now!’

Calloway stood obediently on the brakes. Stopping the car altogether took a while due to the extra weight of steel reinforcements. But he compensated by spinning the wheel again and bringing the Citroen to a wallowing halt side-on to the truck, now stationary on the grass verge. The sleeper, he noticed, was hanging drunkenly from the front where it had become dislodged by the impact.

Throwing off the harness, Tasker struggled into the rear seats and kicked at the door on the undamaged side, moving with difficulty in the confined space. His breathing whistled harshly through his ex-boxer’s smashed nose and his face was flushed with anger.

Before he could clamber out fully, however, two shapes rose up like wraiths from a nearby ditch and ran towards the damaged car. Dressed in camouflage smocks, each man carried two bottles with rags stuffed in the necks. They paused a short distance away, breath puffing white in the cold air, and hurled the bottles against the side of the vehicle. As the glass smashed on impact, the two men stepped closer, drew handguns and opened fire at point-blank range.

Three hundred metres away across the fields, a farmer named Simeon watched from behind his prized horse, a heavy grey percheron, as the sounds of gunshots drifted across on the breeze. He didn’t know what was going on, only that strangers were behaving like lunatics for no good reason. Probably Parisians, he thought, and spat on the ground. Too much money and time on their hands, mostly. Thought they were God’s gift. He recognised a film camera when he saw one, though. It was parked on a tripod by a clump of spindly pine trees, although if it was working, it was doing so all by itself, because there was nobody with it. The truck had barrelled along the narrow track by the trees, passing the camera by no more than a couple of metres before slamming into the Citroen with a loud bang.

Simeon decided it was none of his business. As for the gunshots, he valued his horse too highly to risk it being hit by a stray bullet. He gathered up the lead rein, urging the animal on with a gentle clicking noise. Time to be gone, instinct told him, heading for dead ground where he couldn’t be easily seen. Madness like this was best left to its own company. He’d come back later when they’d gone. Or maybe call the local garde champetre, Lamotte. Let him deal with it.

Back on the road, Tasker had finally calmed down and was pulling on a cigarette, the smoke billowing around his head as he watched Calloway inspecting the damaged coachwork.

‘Not too serious.’ Calloway patted the panel. ‘Thanks to the welding. We were lucky, though.’ He turned and flicked some fragments of broken bottle to one side with his foot, gesturing at the Renault. ‘Any faster and we’d have been toast.’

‘It worked, didn’t it?’ The truck driver called defensively, and jumped down with a grunt from the cab. Jack Fletcher was big across the shoulders and spreading around the midsection, with a face that had seen a few too many hard fights and late nights. Alongside Calloway, he made the former race driver look slim and boyish. He held a match to a roll-up. The loosely packed tobacco caught with a burst of flame, and he sucked hungrily, consuming a third of its length in one drag. His voice had the scratchy quality of a heavy smoker. ‘Came at you square on, just like I was told.’ He huddled inside his coat, shivering against the cold breeze knifing across the flat terrain. It brought with it a metallic smell of standing water and cold, wet earth.

Tasker nodded grudgingly, his fury gone as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘Yeah, it worked. But you bloody near killed us in the process, you ponce. You didn’t need to hit us that hard.’ He dropped the cigarette on the road and stamped on it, watching the two men in camouflage smocks gathering up the glass debris to throw in the ditch. As he bent to pick up the cigarette butt, he froze in a half crouch. ‘Christ,’ he whispered. ‘Where the hell did he spring from?’

‘Who?’ Fletcher turned, and saw the big man staring beneath the truck.

‘Him.’ Tasker pointed under the rear wheels. ‘What’s left of him, anyway.’